Microsoft has killed the Kin after only six weeks on the market. The first Windows Phone 7-ish phone apparently didn't sell, likely thanks to its too-high-for-the-demographic $30 data fee from Verizon.

Depends on whether the subject refers to the group as a whole, or to its individual members. Since the corporate entity does not have ideas, but its employees do, I think one could argue for the plural form here, at least in British English.

Da Book does state, however, that in American English collective nouns used as subjects are always singular.